where i come from

in front of the al history museum (which i don't recommend visiting...not much there, and nothing like i remember as a child), are two signs. One, telling groups to stay with their guide and off the grass. Two, that they can climb on the huge stone map of Alabama (but warning, it can get hot).  Off the grass, on the signs...kind of fun in a wacky way.  But anyhoo, here's photographs of the area near my  neck of the woods:

yes, al has coal mines, a fact not many people know. my grandfather mined in both al and indiana, and suffered with black lung for many years. i'm not going to start naming others i know, as there's simply too many.  any piece of property sold in walker county, al comes with a note on the deed: Property rights do not include mineral rights. In other words, if the mining company who owns the mining rights decides to mine under your house, you can either accept their offer to buy your house and land and find another place to live, or your house will simply become unsuitable to live in and there's nothing you can do about it. that's just the way it is. my brother has been in the mines to repair machines, and he says it's like an entire city underground. a very small part of me thinks it would be cool to take a tour.

and i have to add birmingham because it's the city most people are familiar with, where we did our christmas shopping growing up, and is only 45 minutes southeast from my home.

and smith lake, which is where i lived until i was in the 3rd grade. it's a man-made lake. when they made the dam to create the lake, they flooded countless waterfalls in the area (i've heard my dad and uncles talk about them). they say that you can dive down 40-80 feet in smith lake and still come up on the tips of the tops of grown pine trees. when a person drowns there, it's often impossible to recover the body if they weren't wearing a life vest.  growing up i always heard the old men say if anyone wanted to dispose of a body and it never be found, they only had to weight it and dump it in smith lake or dump it way out in an abandoned strip pit (from the mines). thankfully walker county has few murders (and most are domestic disputes that happen at home); there was one "disappearance" of a high profile person that everyone believes to be a murder, but no body has ever been found. it was during the search for her that everyone speculated her body would be in one of those two places. that was many, many years ago, and she's still never been located.